Boating

Boat Heaven

Each morning in Varanasi - I had three - from my balcony I watched the sun come up over the far side of the Ganga., and at the same time as it rose rowing boats full of pilgrims and tourists began to appear,one at a time at first and then it became a rush  hour as the yellow morning light gradually illuminated the unfolding activity on the ghats. Soon a flood of boats crept upstream close to the bank and then drifted back down in the middle of the river, some carrying 30 or more pilgrims and others just one or two. I took  a boat like that on my second morning and though it was good I think the boat trips are a bit over rated, having spent two other mornings down on the ghats themselves - for me the problem with being on a boat is you cant stop and just observe, the boatman keeps you  moving along, and also, as I had already noticed each boat with tourists on atracts hawkers in their own boats wanting to sell you stuff so instead of watching the shore youre distracted fending off the hawkers, or buying stuff which you could easily do on shore.


The Morning Ritual

In my case I was alone on the boat only for a short while, a hawker stepping onboard just after we first set off - but what an intriquing hawker this one was! She was a really sweet little girl aboutr 10 years old and she had a little handbag full of stuff she wanted me to buy, mostly postcards but also a sort of temporary tatoo set with coloured dyes and Bindis which I think are the  dots Indian people have on their foreheads but these ones are elaborate little stick-ons . The thing about this girl, whose name was Nyna - or something- was that after  a while of getting nowhere with me - she would suddenly  revert to being a happy go lucky kid and start chatting and laughing and mucking around - maybe it was a sort of good cop/bad cop routine because then after  15 minutes or so she would reach into her bag and find something else she wanted me to buy, and I would get the hard sell again. When I found a little fish in the bilges she instantly said I should pay 200  rupees and it would be set free and I would receive good karma - like the owls the night before - but when she eventually realised I wasnt going to fork out she flipped it over the side anyway!



My Boat

 

Nyna

She took over rowing the boat for a while and never stopped chattering away to the guy supposed to be doing the work, and smiling and laughing. She made rowing look easy so I had a go and couldnt believe how heavy and clumsy the oars were, so she must have been a really tough little thing.When I pulled my book of NZ pictures out of my bag she pored over every single one and chatted and laughed about it nonstop with the skipper - she seemed a really inquisitive and intelligent girl, but she said she didnt go to school because she had to earn money.

But what we were supposed to be observing was the morning rituals along the Ganga, basically men - the very occasional old woman - sitting on the steps doing funny liittle stretching exercises then stripping down to baggy  underpants and soaping themslves down and  getting into the river to clean off, usually by holding thier noses and doing a series of three or four ducks under the water. I observed a group of men talking together with great animation as they did all this , they burst ino a chant at one point, they offered prayers and after getting all cleaned up disappeared  back up into the city. There were also pilgrims, lighting little fires, setting flowers and candles adrift, offering prayers and immersing themselves in the river.

Probably checking the Stockmarket

 I watched a sadhu - or perhaps a sadhu pretender - spend absolutely for ever getting himself all cleaned up, oiled and massaged and then redressed in his white clothes and orange turban, taking a few steps this way and that and looking over his shoulder to see how the pleats on his clothes fell, and then finally picking up his little pail and his stick and heading off in time to catch the rush hour of toursists flooding down onto the ghats. I watched another  definite fake sadhu with lots of face paint and white lines on his arms pose with his lame leg curled around a sort of crutch, collect a good bit of cash for the photos taken by a german tour group horde, and then, once they were safely out of sight he uncurled his leg and sauntered off quite casually and without the slightest hint of any disability in the opposite direction. You just have to love it! There were of course many little altars at which sat - well I suuppose they were priests , and earnest pilgrims would undergo with them the rituals of Puja, paying respect and obtaining the blessing  of the Holy Waters - like I did in Pushkar.

This guy is the Real Deal